I've been feeling quite manic this last week: so much to do in such a small amount of time. I presented on Monday, got my Birmingham essays on Tuesday, prepared for and taught on Friday, worked on setting up my analysis of my transcripts for my PhD, took the wife to the doctor on Wednesday, and got batch of essays from Middlesex students. From now I have to mark the Middlesex essays, prepare for my last supervision of 2010 on Wednesday, prepare for a teacher's forum presentation at Middlesex on Friday, and prepare my classes and final exam for the Middlesex classes. The snow threw a significant wrench in my plans, making it incredibly difficult to get to work, but surprisingly, it has not been sapping my energy. I feel quite motivated, manic as I said, and working all hours with no effect on my general health. This will come crashing down, hopefully right around 6:30 on 17 December, when I will have completed my responsibilities for the year and can put down my guns for a couple of weeks.
For those of you that have never experienced a manic state, it's a damn good feeling. You think you can do anything. I can do anything. Nothing is holding me back. Of course, I do know that this destined to end: I felt the same way when it got really cold last year and I had my affair with M. M. Bakhtin and wrote that poem.
This week was punctuated by a good friend of mine sending me a black bowtie, which I have been wanting all year and which I wore with a black shirt and sweater, and dark jeans. I think it worked. Unfortunately, my black shoes, the ones I was married in, now have a hole in them. So I think my Christmas present will be a pair of black Dr Marten's.
This weather though. Fascinating all the feelings it brings back. I was walking to work yesterday and I suddenly had this rush, a sense that I was walking into Gurnee Mills Mall on a cold Saturday morning, going to work. Why does my body remember this? It was bizarre, I wanted so badly to go back suddenly. I worked at the Great American Cookie Co. I drank Cherry Coke and ate cookies all day long. It was such a great job, great to me now, of course. I didn't love it at the time. Well, I don't remember not liking it exactly. It was a job.
Now, 10 years later, I am trying to remember what it was like to eat whatever I wanted and the rush of hitting three o'clock so I could go see my girlfriend. Was I aware of all the potential out there? I'm sure I wasn't, but for what it's worth, 28 year old me sees the potential much better and although I can't eat cookies all day, I feel pretty good.